


Bathtub Love Songs

by scurvaliciousbay



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Bathtub, F/M, Kinda, Mommy Issues, Pre-Romance, Romantic Tension, Singing, Song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 22:39:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6396850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scurvaliciousbay/pseuds/scurvaliciousbay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenhawke fluff that turned angsty and heartachy and then kinda fluffy again. Anyways. Late one night, when he can't sleep, Fenris stumbles upon Katra Hawke singing in her bathtub. Set in between Act 1 and 2. Rated for language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bathtub Love Songs

Fenris sat in his mansion. His great, big, stolen, empty mansion.

He leaned against the wall, staring at his bed not feeling the slightest bit sleepy. Sure, he was tired – exhausted even, but he didn’t want to sleep, not with his head full and his feet twitching. So he stood up, threw the nearly empty bottle of wine into the fire, and did what he did when he couldn’t sleep. He yanked the window on the far wall open, a cold breeze wafting into the already chilly space. Ignoring the chill, Fenris climbed out of the window and up to the roof.

The city looked so different from up here – calm, quiet. The moons hung heavy in the sky and he took a deep breath, inhaling the night before carefully walking across the rooftops. He hopped, skipped, and occasionally leaped to avoid grates and chimneys. His footing was quick and sure and he deftly made his way to the large mansion across the way from Hawke’s.

He didn’t know exactly why watching the estate late at night calmed him, and quite frankly, he didn’t want to think about it. Hawke was…she was different, and being around her made him feel different. But in the ‘not himself’ different but in a ‘healthy, almost fully functioning’ kind of different. He found himself not just wanting to smile, but sometimes actually doing so. It was easy with her. What that meant…he was not at a point where he felt comfortable with thinking about what it meant.

The curtains were always drawn by the time he got there, and he would just sit there, feel the cool air and be reminded that he was free. Completely and totally…free. The first night he had done this, he had stayed out all night, had gotten grumpy and had later picked a fight with the abomination – because he could. It wasn’t one of his prouder moments, but it was one of _his_ moments, full of decisions he had made himself.

This hadn’t began as him wanting to watch her estate or her, but just…needing. He didn’t know what he needed, but whatever it was he found it here.

Normally, the estate was dark and its residents asleep by this hour, but tonight there was a light gently flickering in a second story window. Intrigued, Fenris crept down the mansion to get a better look inside the Hawke estate. He was climbing up the trellis when he realized that this was stalker behavior and that if he was caught, Aveline would haul his ass off to a holding cell faster than Hawke could spin a lie. He was about to shimmy back down the trellis and head back to his own mansion when a lilting voice began to float through the air.

“ _Somewhere over the rainbow,_

_“Way up high,_ ” Fenris cocked his head to the side, angling his ears to hear the voice better. 

_“There’s a land that I’ve heard of_

_“Once in a lullaby.”_ The air was suddenly charged with magic and Fenris was climbing the trellis again, curiosity piqued. His ears twitched and he strained to listen to what was going on. He heard what sounded something like water sloshing around and then clinking glass and Hawke’s unmistakable voice muttering “fuck.” Now he was _definitely_ intrigued.

Fenris was quick and silent, clambering up the trellis. _What are you doing?_ Shit if he knew, all he knew was that Hawke was up there, cursing and potentially singing and he…he had to know what was going on.

He scrambled onto the patio outside of her room, lingering in the shadows. The sight that greeted him was…well, considering what he had heard, he shouldn’t have been surprised, but that didn’t stop the blush that spread up from his neck to his cheeks.

Katra Hawke reclined happily in a large copper claw foot tub, a graceful pale hand holding a wine glass filled to the brim with red wine. And she was naked, very, _very_ naked. He didn’t see anything of course, there was a tub in the way, but he _knew_ she was naked and that was enough to make him blush apparently.

“ _Somewhere over the rainbow,_ ” that was her singing! Her voice…it was beautiful. Like the tinkling bells the Chantry sisters liked to play around Satinalia.

“ _The bluebirds fly so high,_

_“Birds fly over the rainbow_

_“Why then oh why can’t I?_ ” In a quick and elegant motion, Hawke submerged herself underneath the water. She held her wine glass still in her hand raised above the water. She waited ten seconds before coming back up, upturned nose leading her face out from the water. Her normally bright orange-red hair was darkened in flat wet curls down her back, slicked back from her face. Her beautiful, freckle covered face….that was streaked with black lines of kohl.

Fenris’s brow furrowed. He knew what those lines meant, he had tended enough baths to know that wet kohl streaks meant tears and that tears meant that someone had upset her. He wondered who, and he immediately thought of the Abomination, but then realized that said Abomination had locked himself inside his little clinic all day to help with the refugees. Hawke had been with Fenris, Varric, and Aveline all day and none of them had done anything really upsetting, at least not that he could think of.

“ _Someday I’ll wish upon a star_

_“And wake up where the clouds are far_

_“Behind me.”_ She continued to sing, her voice now wavering slightly, her lip trembling.

“ _Where troubles melt like lemon drops_

_“Away above the chimney tops_

_“That’s where you’ll find me.”_ She closed her eyes and bit her lip before letting her head fall back briefly. She exhaled and magic filled the air again. Fenris brushed it off, knowing she was just discharging left over magical energy built up by emotions. He had seen enough apprentices do the same thing, but he had never seen a mage of her age and caliber do it. Because of the lyrium in his skin, Fenris had always been able to tell what emotion was attached to the discharge.

His brow furrowed and he scowled. Melancholy. Deep seated, heart breaking…melancholy. _What did she have to feel melancholy about?_

“ _Somewhere over the rainbow_

_“The Bluebirds fly._

_“Birds fly over the rainbow_

_“Why then oh why can’t I?_

_“Why then oh why can’t I?”_ Her voice broke, her eyebrows went up and he could have sworn he saw a tear in her eye. Her mouth twitched into an odd, sad smile before bringing the wine glass to her mouth, taking a long drink.

After the extended sip, she set the wine glass on a nearby table. Hawke took a deep breath then reached up to rub the kohl from her face. Her face turned toward the terrace too quickly for Fenris to move out of sight.

Both of them froze, wide eyes locked as they realized their compromised positions.

Hawke was the first to move. Her hands reached up quickly and drew the bubbles around her as she sank deeper into the tub.

“Fenris!” She hissed, “What are you doing here?!” She demanded. The truth would sound bad, a lie would also sound bad, so Fenris settled for misdirection.

“You have a lovely singing voice,” he whispered back. Her eyes narrowed, but some of the tension in her shoulders dissipated. Before she could say anything, he crept closer to the window.

“You’ve been crying,” he stated.

“It’s water and kohl, Fenris, this is what happens when the two meet,” she rolled her eyes but her mouth twitched again and her eyes remained dark. But he wasn’t going to press the issue, she never forced him to talk, he did that all by himself, so he continued with misdirection.

“You like to sing in the bath tub.”

“The Chantry doesn’t really approve of apostates singing in their choir.” Her level of forthrightness was concerning, but he wasn’t leaving.

“Do you know any other songs?” He asked.

Hawke squirmed a bit, “Yes, but they’re all love songs.”

“Better than the slave songs,” he said point blank. She barked a short laugh, somehow hearing his dark humor.

“Fine. I will sing you a love song.” She cleared her throat and made a flourish with her hand.

“ _If you were falling, then I would catch you._

_“You need a light, I’d find a match._

_“Cause I love the way you say good morning._

_“And you take me the way I am.”_ Her eyes met his briefly and his breath hitched in his throat.

_“If you are chilly, here take my sweater._

_“Your head is aching, I’ll make it better._

_“Cause I love the way you call me baby._ ” Her lips upturned and her voice broke into a short laugh, some of the humor even reaching her eyes. He smiled back at her, her laugh and humor always infectious.

_“And you take me the way I-_

Lady Leandra suddenly burst into the room, her face full of aristocratic outrage.

“KATRA HAWKE!” This time, Fenris _did_ manage to roll away and out of the light. He couldn’t see what was going on, but he heard everything.

“Mother! I see knocking is still beneath you,” Hawke said dryly.

“Katra Claudienne Hawke, what mother taught you that walking out of a dinner with a fine upstanding man of society by spilling wine on your dress was the appropriate thing to do? Because it _certainly_ wasn’t me.” Her middle name is _Claudienne_? His nose wrinkled in distaste and he felt a little bad for her.

“I dunno, mother. Perhaps it was the mother I found when running around Darktown or Lowtown or in the Deep Roads trying to make money to buy this great fucking monument to a family that disowned you.” Fenris’s eyebrows went up at that.

“That is wholly uncalled for, Lord Falk is a good man –

“And is dreadfully boring, snooty, and the rumor mill says that he isn’t even that interested in women, sooo –

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You want me to marry a man who isn’t even interested in my high quality love pocket and you’re asking me what that has to do with anything. Wow.” He rolled his eyes at her ridiculous innuendo.

“You are completely out of control!”

“When have I ever been ‘under control’? If my memory serves me correctly, this wasn’t such an issue when I was making you money and getting you position!”

“That is because the moment called for it. There is no need to be that crass or unruly now. We, _you_ are a woman of standing and you ought to act like it.”

“I didn’t want this! I wanted to be safe, I wanted to go to Ostwick where the Templars aren’t breathing down the necks of the mages and there are maniacal blood mages around every corner. You brought us here!” Ostwick? She wanted to go to Ostwick? A sudden though of what it would have been like if she had gone to Ostwick appeared in his mind. No taking over the mansion, stayin gin Kirkwall only long enough to resupply before he was on the run again. He would never have known her face, her laughter…her singing.

“To save us! You…you are so ungrateful!”

“Me? Ungrateful? How about you look in the fucking mirror!”

“How dare you speak to me that way!” Then, in a much quieter tone, Leandra said, “Bethany would never speak to me that way.” There was a pause and the air went cold. Another subtle burst of energy leaked out of the room. Hatred and disappointment tainted the air, constricting around his throat.

“Well, I’m not Bethany.” Hawke replied, her voice dark and full of heavy sadness.

“You make that apparent more and more each day.” There were heavy stomps, the click of the door opening, and then the door slamming closed. There was a pregnant pause before he heard Hawke sigh.

Fenris was going to slink away, leave Hawke to her bath and wine, but then –

“Fenris?” She asked softly.

“Yes?”

“Do you want to help me finish this bottle?” She asked. He moved out from underneath the windowsill and quirked a brow at her.

“Are you sure, it sounded like you may need the entire bottle,” he saw the fresh tears too late to stop from teasing her. But she smiled at him anyways, beckoning him over.

“I’m sure. Please, drink with me.” Fenris took a breath and then climbed through the window into her room. She thrust the bottle out toward him and he took it, then took a generous swig.

“What are we drinking to?” He asked. Her smile was self-deprecating and remorseful.

“Singing in the bathtub,” her speech was beginning to slur, but he didn’t mind. He sat down next to her tub with the bottle, taking another swig. It was good wine.

“There was this little hamlet, Colinstown. We lived there for about four years, from when I was twelve to sixteen. This town had a small chantry, no more than ten lay sisters and a couple of Templars – a wonderful little place to hide out if you have three apostates in your family. Bethany and I would always sing with each other, but she was starting to not love it as much as I did. So I went to the place where anybody could sing in peace.”

“The chantry,” Fenris supplied and she nodded.

“Yes. I went to the Chantry and I asked if I could sing with them. Mother Tabitha smiled and said ‘Of course, child’ in that nice patronizing way adults always do when they expect a child to be bad at something.” She smiled then, an actual beautiful smile of happiness, or remembered happiness. She took a sip of her wine, still smiling victoriously.

“I sang for her. I didn’t know the name of the song or where it was from, but I sang it. The look on her face…remember Dan the Duke when he picked that fight with Merrill at the Hanged Man?”

“When she punched him and broke his nose? Yes, I remember it.” That man’s nose had been a geyser of blood. The entire tavern, including Fenris, had cheered at seeing the lecherous bully being taken down by a small elven girl.

“Yeah, well, her face was like _that._ Completely shocked that this particular person did this thing they never thought them capable of. It was…glorious. Ever since that day I have loved singing. I loved that little choir.” Her eyes were dark again and Fenris’s brow furrowed once more.

“What happened?”

“I was singing with Sister Nan, putting on a little show for the children. It was Feast Day and it was traditional for the sisters to sing for the children in Colinstown. They cheered for me when the second song ended and I was so happy, so full of pride and confidence and just sheer…joy, that I let it…it just billowed out of me.”

“Your magic,” Fenris could guess where this was going and his heart…his heart _hurt_ in anticipation. It had never done that before with anyone else but himself. He had an urge to reach other and take her hand, but he didn’t. He remained still and seated, full of things he couldn’t, wouldn’t, think about.

“Yes. Ser Alward sensed it immediately and drew his sword. He drained my mana and charged at me. The children screamed, I could barely breathe, Sister Nan tried to grab me…but somehow I ran. I ran fast and as hard as I could to my house. I told my parents what happened and we took what we could in five minutes and then fled Colinstown. We ran until we came across Lothering. I didn’t sing for years.” She sank deeper into the tub and magic drifted through the air again. The tub began to steam and she sighed in comfort.

“Mother hates it when I sing, says it brings up bad memories.” She downed the rest of her wine. Fenris turned to her, wanting so desperately to touch her – he didn’t.

“That’s too bad, you have a beautiful voice.” He said and she giggled, actually giggled, her heading falling to the shoulder closest to him

“You’ve already said that.”

“It’s true, your voice is beautiful, just as you are.” He was saying things, dangerous things but he couldn’t not do something. He was brimming with unprocessed emotion and all he knew was that being near her was the best feeling he had had since that first night he had spent on the road – free from Danarius. Fenris looked at her dopey, smiling face, still streaked with kohl, and his heart felt…free.

“Well, I think you have a beautiful voice, too.”

“I – I…really?” He asked, startled and blushing by her flattery.

“Oh Maker, _yes._ Fenris, your voice is the stuff of dreams – rich and smooth and deep and just…beautiful.” Before he could say anything, she dipped back down into the tub. She came back up with a gasp, scrubbing her face, trying to remove the kohl. She grabbed a washcloth and pulled it across her face in harsh strokes.

“Ugh, dried makeup is such a bitch,” she grunted. When she took the cloth away, her face was red and splotchy but now he could see _her_. He could see all of her freckles and the shape of her cheeks, the intense blue of her eyes – _beautiful_.

She turned to him and smiled, “Thank you for staying here through all my…bullshit.” She sighed, “I need to go to bed. Varric said that there’s big slaver operation out on the Wounded Coast, going to need rest to be able to deal with that. And you’ll need sleep too since I assume you’ll want to be there?” She asked.

“Of course,” he replied simply. He looked down at the now empty wine bottle then stood up.

“I will let you retire then.”

“Goodnight, Fenris,” she said and he nodded to her before climbing back out of the window and into the night. He skipped along the roofs of the mansions, his feet not as agile as they were before, but still suitable to see him to his drafty mansion. He climbed back into his room and promptly flopped onto the bed, finally able to sleep.

**

Katra got out of the tub when she was certain he was out of eye sight. She yanked a towel to her body, quickly drying before falling into her bed, stark naked. She sighed and buried her face into her pillow before turning her head to the side, looking out the window Fenris had just climbed through. She took a deep breath and finished her song from before.

“ _Cause I love you more than I could ever promise._

_“And you take me the way I am._

_“You take me the way I am._

_“You take me the way I am.”_

**Author's Note:**

> Songs are not mine! I claim no ownership to them.   
> Over the Rainbow by Ingrid Michaelson and The Way I Am by Ingrid Michaelson.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it. If you want more Katra and Fenris, please head over to my tumblr (scurvgirl.tumblr.com) and prompt me!


End file.
